


Chemistry

by tardigradestories



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Green Gables Fables
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Unrequited Crush, listen guys i don't really know how good this is will be, mainly gilbert's crush, ok, shirbert, there's only a lil hint of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4155993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardigradestories/pseuds/tardigradestories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Umm....well this is my first fanfic, so don't expect a LOT. I saw a lack of Green Gables Fables fics, and had a mighty need for some modern Shirbert. So, I wrote it. :) </p><p>Anne and Gilbert are up way too late studying for their Chemistry final, when Anne suggests a study break...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemistry

“Anne Shirley, it’s one o’clock in the morning, we don’t have time for a break with that chemistry final on Monday,” Gilbert shouted into his computer.

“First of all— _shh_! People are sleeping around here. Second of all—that chemistry final is exactly why we need a break.” Anne explained in a whisper. “The whole concept of studying won’t work if we oversaturate our brains with information two nights before the test. Besides, the stars are especially bright tonight.”

Gilbert let out a sigh. He _was_ tired. The words may have been starting to blur together on the page.

“What exactly are you proposing, Shirley?” he asked, his voice matching Anne's hushed tone.

Anne let out a small smile. “Meet me in 20 minutes on Cloud Mountain. Bring a thick blanket.”

With one final mysterious look, she exited out of their Skype chat.

Twenty minutes later, Gilbert was at the base of “Cloud Mountain”, Anne’s name for the hill next to the Haunted Wood. He could vaguely make out a braid of carrot-red hair at the top, and started the small trek up the hill. Gilbert never could figure out why he went along with all of her hare-brained ideas. Or why he loved all of them so much—even when they didn't work out.

“Gil! Finally!” Anne shouted when she saw him from her seat on a blanket. She gave a fluttery wave.

“What do you mean _finally_?” Gilbert said indignantly. “You said twenty minutes, and it’s been twenty minutes! I brought the blanket you requi—no, demanded _and_ chocolate just because.”

Anne tipped her head back and laughed. “Okay, okay, not finally, but time goes by especially slowly on this hill. The chocolate was a sweet idea, though.”

Gilbert groaned. “Just for that pun, I might withhold the chocolate.”

“You would never do something so horrible!” Anne said, widening her eyes.

The look in her eyes was enough to make him nod his head thoughtfully. “For most people I would. Thankfully for you, it’s late at night, and I’m tired, so you get a special pass.”

Anne grinned. “And _that_ is why I brought you up here. Well, that and the fact that the chemistry book was putting me half to sleep.”

“Wait a second.” Gilbert frowned. “Why exactly did you bring me up here?”

“Can’t you figure it out by yourself?” Anne gestured at the landscape, “Look around you. What could there possibly be to do on a hilltop at night?”

Her voice dripped sarcasm, but it didn’t stop the first thought in his mind from being ~~_make out_~~. ”Um,” he stalled, trying to wipe the thought from his mind. _They were friends. Just friends._ Then he looked up, and it suddenly clicked.

“You’re not telling me,” he said, “that you want to _stargaze_? At 1:20 AM? When we have a final on Monday?”

Anne rolled her eyes. “There isn’t any school tomorrow, and looking at the stars counts as learning about physics, which is a science, the same field as chemistry. It works out fine, okay.”

“Well, up against that flawless logic, who could argue?” He quipped. Then he realized he had been standing during their entire conversation. “I see you brought your own blanket,” he gestured at the pale sheet she was sitting on. He moved to spread his own on the ground, when she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“My blanket was for both of us to sit on. Your blanket is for if it gets cold.” That seemed unlikely, as they both knew, so she added, “Also I needed you to bring _something_. Empty hands don’t do on late night escapades.”

He bundled up his blanket, and put it on the grass as he sat down next to her. “Chocolate?” he offered her a square. As they ate the dark, slightly-bitter sweet, he looked up. The best part of living in a small town was the lack of extreme light pollution. The stars glittered in the sky, and a few constellations were easy to pick out even at a glance.

“Okay. Now that we’ve finished eating, it’s safe to lie down, which is the only proper way to stargaze.” Anne said. They both collapsed backwards on the ground, and let their eyes naturally look at the stars. Which was where Gilbert’s eyes naturally looked, of course. They weren’t seeing the strand of red hair that she forgot to tuck behind her ear. Or the small constellation of freckles he determined was on her face. They were _definitely_ not looking at the wonder reflected in her eyes. That would be weird. There was a small silence.

“Name the first constellation you can see.” Anne’s words made him look up to the stars.

“Well…” He pointed. “There’s the Big Dipper, the tail of Ursa Major.”

Anne nodded, then, with a small gesture of her hands, said, “And there—next to it—you can see Draco.” She sighed wistfully. “I remember when I learned Draco Malfoy was named after a constellation. It made me so jealous of his name. Well—not the name ‘Draco’ exactly, but the idea of being named after a constellation. It’s so much grander than being named Anne. After that, I looked at all the astronomy books I could get my hands on to find any equally grand names for myself.”

Gilbert looked at her. “Did you find any?”

She half-smiled and hid her face behind a braid. “For a long time I considered Andromeda. The name is so romantic and the fact that she was a mythical person made it even better.”

“You do realize Andromeda was also a character in Harry Potter, right?” If she hadn’t, Gilbert might have had to revoke some of her Potterhead cred.

“Well, yes,” said Anne, “when it came up in the _last_ book. I had picked Andromeda before that.”

Of course Gilbert believed that. “So is Andromeda your favorite constellation, then, or do you just like the name?” he asked.

She let her eyes wander above, her braid and hand falling to her side. “My favorite constellation will forever be Corona Borealis. What’s yours?”

He was slightly surprised at her lack of explanation behind Corona Borealis - this was Anne, after all, the girl of a thousand stories - but Gilbert only let that shake him momentarily. He pointed to a patch of especially dark sky. “Camelopardalis,” he said softly.

“Where is it, exactly?” Anne asked.

“Near Ursa Major and Draco.”

“That large patch?” She gestured. “The stars are so faint! What are they even supposed to be?”

Gilbert didn't care for the surprise in her voice. “The name translates to camel leopard, or giraffe," he informed her stiffly.

Anne noticed the change of tone and turned her head to face his. “I didn’t mean to offend you I just—can’t really make out the pattern because it's so far away," she apologized.

“Well, you’re not alone,” he admitted. “Even though it’s the largest constellation in our hemisphere, the Greeks couldn’t see it because the stars are so faint and thought that patch of sky was empty.”

Anne squinted. “Now that I’m really looking at it, I can see a very faint design.” He knew that she probably couldn’t. Hell, he could barely see it himself, but the fact that she was lying to spare his feelings warmed his heart a little. They lay there like that for a while, barely two inches from each other, just gazing up at the stars and occasionally pointing out a constellation to each other. Gilbert could feel her body warmth next to him. He tried not to pay attention to it.

“Do you ever just think of the vastness of space and get a little freaked out because it's just so _big_ and humans will probably never know its full extent?” He cringed a little at his conversation skills. _One way to forget about your feelings is to contemplate our universe. Great going, Blythe._

Anne didn't notice his awkward change of conversation, though, and if she did, she took it in stride. She spread her arms out wide, or as wide as possible without touching him. “There are times when I long to travel to the future just to see how much further humanity has explored,” she admitted. “Just the idea that our universe is so large and contains millions of galaxies, and at least one of them contains some kind of alien species is so cool.”

“If there are alien races—and let's be real there is a _very_ small chance that there aren’t—how many do you think there would be?” Gilbert asked.

“Oh, I have no idea. Tens? Hundreds? Unknowable amounts?” She sighed. “But what do you think an alien race would look like?”

“According to science or movies?”

“According to _you_ ," Anne replied with a smile.

“I don’t think they would walk on two legs.” He pondered. “I mean, they may not even be land creatures. I do know for certain that they will be impossibly cool, and I find it hard to believe that they would want to destroy humanity before humanity had a chance to destroy them.”

Anne nodded and brought her legs up so that the knees were sticking out at the stars. “True. Humanity probably wouldn't make them homicidal immediately. Do you think they would be able to communicate with us, though?"

“Well, that depends on our level of technology and theirs, if they even have any. What kind of technology would aliens even have, anyway?”

“Well, that depends on what kind of planet they live on, of course, but I’m just spitballing here…probably not iPhones. Maybe nothing that needs opposable thumbs," Anne suggested, bringing her hands together and twiddling her own thumbs for emphasis.

Gilbert went with it. “What if they had something like an iPhone that didn’t require opposable thumbs? What if they invented an internal iPhone system?”

“Ooh! What if they didn't communicate out loud at all—just projected into each others’ brains?”

“That would be so cool.” Gilbert glanced over at her. “What if humans developed that ability?”

Anne grinned. “Do you want to test it out, Gil?”

He shrugged - which was kind of difficult to do while lying down, and was something he made a mental note to never try again. “Why not?”

“Okay, on the count of three we try to send something to the other person’s mind. It has to be a short message, though. One…two….three!”

They turned on their sides and squinted at each other. Anne even tried a Vulcan mind meld kind of thing with her hands.

_I love you._

Thank god Anne really couldn’t read minds, or she would have seen those three words. He wasn’t ready for that. As much as he longed for it, Gilbert had a vague plan and timeframe for how to tell her, and Anne receiving the message via mind meld was not a part of it.

He never found out what she wanted to send him either, as after a moment of intense concentration they both gave up. The conversation only got weirder after that, as conversations past 3 am are bound to go.

Surprisingly, they both got so caught up in their conversation that neither of them checked the time until they woke up the next morning under Gilbert’s thick blanket, still on the hill. He woke up first, to a brightening sky and Anne’s head on top of his chest. While he couldn’t say that the warm flutters in his chest were bad, he was obliged to wake her up anyway. “Anne—Anne Shirley—wake up!”

“Huh?” She lifted her head in bleary confusion. Then she looked around and realized where she was. And, more importantly, where Gilbert was. “Oh, god, what _happened_?” She rushed to get up.

“We must have fallen asleep last night—this is what late night ‘study breaks’ get us,” Gilbert retorted while sitting up, still stinging slightly from her rush to get away from him.

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t love that study break.”

He couldn't lie. “Alright, alright, it was awesome—now what time is it?”

After pulling out their phones, they stared at each other in horror.

“We have 10 minutes before Mrs. Lynde comes this way on her morning walk and tells all of Avonlea that we’re here,” Anne said tersely.

They rushed their goodbyes and grabbed their blankets. Anne made it home just in time to sneak back to bed, and Gilbert actually got into his pajamas before fake sleeping.

They both aced that Chemistry final.

**Author's Note:**

> Urm, thanks for reading this! Constructive criticism is very much appreciated :D
> 
> And, if you like my writing, prompts at tardigradeoftheforest on tumblr are always welcome. 
> 
> (also shoutout to acciopotatoes for editing help and being my beta reader)


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